BALLINROBE, CO. MAYO, _Thursday, Nov. 11th._
Hearing that the march of the Ulster men upon Lough Mask House would not commence till nearly nightfall, I drove over early this morning to Mr. Boycott's in a private carriage, hired cars being, for the reasons stated yesterday, quite unattainable. "Did your honour wish to set the country on me?" is the only reply vouchsafed by car-drivers since one of their body was cruelly beaten, presumably for the unpardonable sin of driving a policeman to the house under taboo.
The drive through the warm soft morning air was much pleasanter than that of yesterday evening; nor did people start up in an uncomfortable way from behind the stone wall, as they did last night. At intervals the sun shone out on the reddened foliage, greatly changed in hue since my first visit to Lough Mask. The half-dozen persons I met appeared to be going about their daily work like good citizens; and a casual visitor might, if he could have persuaded anybody to drive him along the road to Lough Mask, have gone away convinced that the whole story of wrong and outrage was the work of a distempered brain. The isolated dwelling itself was by far the most gloomy object in the landscape--grey and prison-like as most of the Irish houses of its class.
Mr. Boycott's habitation has thoroughly the look of a place in which crimes have been, or, as a native of these parts suggested, "ought to be committed." Two dark figures of the Royal Irish Constabulary occupy the front-door step, and others of the same keep watch and ward over stables and ground. Nearly three weeks of painful excitement had made but slight change in Mr. Boycott's family. His wife and daughter live under circumstances which would drive many people mad, and the combative land-agent and farmer himself maintains a belligerent attitude, the grey head and slight spare figure bowed, but by no means in submission. On the contrary, never was Mr. Boycott's attitude more defiant. It is only by skilful subterfuge that he can get a shirt washed for his outer, or a loaf of bread made for his inner man. The underground routes which existed a fortnight ago are closed. In fact "every earth is stopped," and the hunted man is driven to the open. Not a soul will sell him sixpence-worth of anything. He cannot even get a glass for his watch, for the watch-maker no more than anybody else dare serve him. Every feature of his extraordinary situation depicted in my first letter on "Disturbed Ireland" is exaggerated almost to distortion.